


Art Lessons

by audrey1nd



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audrey1nd/pseuds/audrey1nd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You want to draw me like one of your French girls?" In which Cassie finally gets Nick to teach her how to drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellievolia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellievolia/gifts).



> Cassie's a week away from being 18, so it's not really underage, but I figured I'd mark it just to be safe.

Nick tries to get Cassie to take art lessons everywhere they go. She resists at first, huffing a laugh and flicking her pink-streaked hair out of her eyes as she draws her usual poorly rendered figures. “You understood them just fine when we were all going to die.”

“Yeah, well there wasn’t that much that could be misunderstood. Plus you explained things. Remember the bead? I thought it was an olive.”

*******

They’re somewhere in Europe a few years later when she finally gives in. 

Despite her initial protests, she gets really into it. 

“Nick,” she throws herself onto the chair next to where Nick is siting. “Can we go into the city?”

“You’re really bad at this ‘no decisions’ thing, aren’t you? What did I tell you? Never decide anything, just do. That’s how you keep Watchers from seeing you.”

Instead of answering, she jumps up, throws Nick’s coat and him, grabs the car keys and heads out the door.

“Well, I guess that’s one way of doing it,” he mutters to himself as he follows her out.

She’s leaning against the car, tapping her foot impatiently. “When are you going to teach me how to drive?” 

“When you turn 18. I don’t want you getting pulled over for looking too young and a Watcher finding us because of some cop’s decisions.”

“Oh, come on. I totally look 18,” she whined as she opened the car door and plopped down in the front seat.

Nick just ignored her and started driving. They were about an hour out, and she took out her sketchbook as they drove.

“Another vision?” Nick asked, turning to look at her as he drove. “What is it this time?”

“No, just drawing,” Cassie answered. She had been drawing a picture of Nick in profile. It didn’t really look like him, but at least it looked a bit more like a person than it would have a few weeks ago.

She shows him when they’re stopped at a light, just outside the city. 

“Hey, that’s a lot better!” He says brightly.

“I know it sucks,” she grumbled.

Nick laughed. “Hey, at least it’s recognizable. Much better than the still life you drew last week. Your depiction of that orange was a little disturbing.”

Cassie laughed. “So I haven’t quite got shading down. That’s why we’re going into the city! So I can see how it’s supposed to be done!” 

*****

A few years later they were living in the south of France. Cassie had enrolled herself in a figure drawing class a while back and sat on the beach drawing people whenever she had the time. It was now quite clear what her drawings were representing, even if it sometimes was unclear as to what they actually meant. 

It was a rainy day and they were staying inside when Cassie came over and plopped down on the couch next to Nick, who was contacting a sniffer that they thought might be in the area. The American Division had been falling to pieces since Carver’s demise, but that didn’t mean other countries’ Divisions were doing the same. Cassie’s mom had finally gotten out of Division’s grasp, but she’d seen that it wasn’t safe for her and Cassie to stay together so they’d been moving around trying to learn everything that they could about the other Divisions around the world. 

“I’m bored,” Cassie whined. “It’s too cold to go out.”

Nick just grunted in response, staring intently at the coded message he was writing out.

Cassie cocked her head and looked at him. “Will you pose for me?”

Nick looked up. “What?” he said, confused. “Aren’t you sick of drawing me by now?”

Cassie gave him a look like he was an idiot. “No. Now take off your shirt.”

“Oh, is that how it is? You want to draw me like one of your French girls?” he laughed.

Cassie rolled her eyes. Nick had been extremely relieved when she’d started bringing home girls to “draw,” instead of the boys that she’d been bringing around when they were in Italy. 

She climbed on his lap and started taking his shirt off in response. “Hey, hey. I can do it myself,” he protested, pulling away. He put away his computer and took off his shirt. “So, what do you want me to do?” He looked embarrassed and uncomfortable.

“Seriously? We’ve been traveling together for years. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”

Nick blushed. “It’s not that. I just, you usually draw me when I’m not paying attention. I just don’t want to mess up your drawing or whatever.”

Cassie just rolled her eyes and pushed him down on the couch. “Just,” she paused, “lie there and try not to move too much.” 

Nick laughed. “I think I can manage that.”

An hour later Nick’s leg was starting to fall asleep. “Are you done yet?” he asked. “My leg’s falling asleep.”

It had been quiet in the apartment, the sound of their breathing and Cassie’s drawing being the only sounds made, before Nick spoke up. Cassie startled and looked up. “Shit,” she said, looking back down at her paper. 

“What is it?” Nick said, sitting up in alarm, wincing at the pins and needles currently rushing up his leg.

“Nothing,” Cassie blushed. “Just, you startled me. I messed up this one.”

She turned the page quickly before Nick could get a good look at it, but it looked like it was of two people, not him lying on the couch. 

“Okay,” he drew it out, look at her skeptically. “You’d tell me if you saw something, right? Like, if something was going to happen soon that we need to worry about?”

Cassie looked at him like he was an idiot. “Of course I would! Gosh, you’re such an idiot sometimes.” She put down her notebook, grabbed her coat and went out the door. “I’ll see you later, okay? I need to get out for a bit.”

Nick stood, stamping his foot around. Normally he wouldn’t look in Cassie’s notebook, but if she was freaking out about something, he should probably know. Walking the walk of one with an asleep leg, Nick went over to where Cassie had left her notebook. He opened it and flipped through, looking at the pictures she had drawn of him on the couch this afternoon. He flipped through until he got to an empty page and then went back to the last one that had been drawn on. Nick stared at it in shock. It was still of him, but it definitely wasn’t from this afternoon. It was him and Cassie kissing. Naked. 

Nick put down her notebook and sat back down on the couch. Sure, he loved Cassie, but he definitely did not think about her that way. He especially didn’t have dreams about her that looked like her drawing. And he definitely didn't think about them in the shower. But if she had drawn it, it meant that in some future, if they made the same decisions they were currently making, it would happen. But now Nick was curious if she’d ever drawn the two of them together before. Doing something he wouldn’t have done under normal circumstances, Nick went into Cassie’s room and took out her notebooks. He started with the most recent one. The first page was of him and Cassie holding hands. She looked a bit older than she did now and was heavily pregnant. Nick wasn’t sure how he felt about that one. The next one he came across of the two of them together was like the first. He kept going through her sketchbooks, finding drawings of the two of them in various stages of a relationship. He knew that Cassie would have only kept them to herself if she was scared about it. He wasn’t sure if it was because she wanted to change it or if she wanted to make sure they happened. 

Nick started to put her notebooks away and looked at the clock. It’d been an hour. Cassie would probably be coming back soon. As soon as he thought it, Nick heard the sound of the door opening. Nick froze. He wasn’t sure what Cassie would do when she found him snooping through her notebooks. He heard her walking over and turned around.

She was drunk. She had about half of a bottle of vodka left and it was dangling in her hand. “I see you found them. I was wondering when it would happen. It was only a matter of time, even if I never did see it.”

“Cassie, I–” Nick was cut off as she lunged at him, knocking him onto the bed with a savage kiss. Nick kissed her back for a moment before he pushed her off of him.

“Cassie, we can’t. You’re–” Once again, she cut him off.

“Turning eighteen next week. You better be ready to teach me how to drive.” She pushed him back down and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. She leaned down and kissed him again. This time Nick went with it. He’d never put his shirt back on and her small hands felt cold on his chest. He shivered and moved his hands to her hips, where they gripped the cold skin exposed by her shirt riding up. He could feel her hands moving down towards his pants, but he stopped her when she tried to unbutton them.

He broke away from her mouth. “Not yet,” he breathed.

“But,” Cassie panted, her pupils dilated and lips swollen, “I thought–”

Nick brushed her hair back from her face, cupping her cheek. “I do. But you’re drunk. And whatever you’re going to say about all those other boys and girls, stuff it. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s us and with the way things are, this shouldn’t be like that. This should be like everything you’ve seen. And I don’t think I saw this in your notebooks.”

Cassie huffed a sigh and rolled her eyes. “Seriously? God, I should have known you’d be like this after what you were like with Miss Trouble, but I didn’t think it’d be this hard.” She ground down on him as she said the word “hard,” and smirked as he hissed in appreciation. She pouted down at him before rolling off to lie next to him on her bed.

“Fine, whatever. We’ll do it your way. I haven’t seen anything change yet.”

Ever since the big battle against Carver, Nick had been practicing his moving skills, same as Cassie had been practicing her watching. Though apparently Nick hadn’t been quite aware of the extent of her watching. But either way, he was now proficient enough to pour Cassie a glass of water and put it on the bedside without getting up. He sat up and looked at her and then looked at the water.

“Go on and drink it. You know what you’re like in the morning if you don’t.”

Cassie grumbled and rolled over to reach for the water. As she drank it, Nick started to get up. She grabbed at his shoulder and put the glass down.

“Stay. Please.” She looked at him seriously. “I promise I’ll behave.”

“Fine. If you don’t I won’t take you driving in the morning.”

Cassie smiled a huge grin. “Deal.” She drew her shirt up over her head.

“Woah! What are you doing, I thought we had a deal?” Nick looked at her incredulously. 

“Pajamas,” she mumbled through her shirt. She smiled evilly at him as her face emerged from her shirt. “But we could always resume.” She waggled her eyebrows at him. 

Nick just shook his head and laughed. “In that case, I will be right back.”

When Nick returned wearing his pajama bottoms and a sleep shirt, Cassie was already asleep, wearing an oversized shirt and snuffling into a pillow. Nick slid in beside her and she rolled over and curled a hand into his shirt. 

“Driving,” she mumbled.

“Don’t worry. You can menace the countryside all you want tomorrow. Now go to sleep.” Nick wrapped his arm around her as he settled in to sleep. This wasn’t the first time they’d slept in the same bed, but it was different now that they’d both acknowledged their feelings for each other. Nick wondered if Cassie would be seeing anything new in the morning. He had no idea what her driving would be like tomorrow, but he’d be driving them far out of the city before he let her behind the wheel.

**Author's Note:**

> I liked the idea of Cassie getting better at drawing and I really wanted to put in the line, "draw me like one of your French girls." Otherwise I totally would have written pregnant Cassie fic, because that is also something I love. Maybe I still will...


End file.
